The preliminary survey and study on java tea (Orthosiphon stamineus Benth.) in Southern Thailand

Orthosiphon stamineus Benth. or known as java tea, which can be used as a beverage. It is grown throughout Southeast Asia and Australia. Java tea is frequently used for the treatment of renal inflammation, kidney stone, rheumatism, and dysuria. These works were the preliminary survey and study on java tea in some area in Southern Thailand. The identification of cultivars for java tea were based on morphological and floral structures. There were two varieties of java tea around Southern Thailand. Inflorescence colors were differentiated based on the petal colors petals, purple and white. The evaluation of antioxidant capacity was determined by total phenolic and ABTS assay. Both assays showed a slightly high antioxidant capacity both in water and methanol extracts. The finding revealed that dry leaves present higher antioxidant capacity than processed products in methanol as well as in water extracts, however ABTS assay in water extracts showed processed products had higher capacity than those. The purple variety had higher antioxidant capacity than the white variety in both water and methanol extracts resulted from total phenolic assay. In addition, java tea grown in sunny showed higher antioxidant capacity than those in shaded area in both water and methanol extracts, witch resulted from total phenolic assay.